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By Root 486 0

the water. The first man in uniform blew his whistle in shrill bursts and waved furiously at me. I angled back toward shore, thinking, How am I going to talk my way out of this when I can’t speak the language? Swim closer to the shore, I told myself. The man finally stopped blowing his whistle. He thought I was going to climb out of the water, but I didn’t want to. There were so many rocks covered with barnacles, and there was a lot of broken glass. I was afraid of getting cut. I pointed to the opposite shore, where I knew I could climb out safely and get my sweats and shoes, but the man shook his head. I took a few more strokes toward him and pointed at the starting point again. He adamantly shook his head, then balanced on a rock five feet from me, squatted down, and extended his hand. I lifted my goggles and smiled. “Gracias,” I said, wondering how much trouble I was in. He continued to extend his hand, but I didn’t take it; there were too many sharp rocks. “Gracias,” I repeated, pointing to some smoother rocks to the right. He leaped in that direction, and I climbed out on all fours.

My feet were stiff, and they hurt. The man’s uniform had the word Prefectura written on the shoulder. He pointed near my feet, warning me where there were shards of glass. A small policewoman reached down to take my hand. I was afraid that I would slip and pull her in, so I said, “Gracias” again and stayed down on all fours, grabbing a rock to pull myself forward. When I reached the top, the policewoman motioned for me to get into the police car. I pointed to my swimsuit; I was dripping wet. They didn’t want to get the back seat of the car wet, did they? The policewoman spoke with the man from the prefectura, and I think she told him that I was his responsibility. He seemed to accept that. He asked me something in Spanish, but the only word I caught was ropa.

Sounds like robe, I thought; he must mean clothes. I gestured to the place where I had started the swim. He escorted me along the street, where a crowd was watching and shouting questions. Traffic had stopped so that people could see what was going on. My feet were killing me, and I was cold, wet, and shivering.

He signaled for me to wait while he climbed down the embankment and searched for my sweat suit. He found something and held it up to show it to me. It was the key from the Albatross Hotel.

“Ropa?” he asked completely confused.

How do you say “Someone stole my clothes” in Spanish? I wondered. “No ropa,” I said.

He didn’t understand.

“No sweat suit. No shoes,” I explained. I’d never had my clothes stolen before, and I’d never been arrested either.

He gestured for me to follow him back along the road to the coast guard headquarters. The wind was howling, and more people were stopping their cars to see what was happening. I was so embarrassed to be walking down what was their main street in a swimsuit. I stepped on some broken glass, grabbed my foot, and winced. It wasn’t bleeding. I just wanted to get back to the hotel and get warm. But I kept trying to talk with the man from the coast guard, hoping to gain his sympathy so he wouldn’t put me in jail.

“California. Nadadora—swimmer? You?” I asked, wishing I had studied Spanish.

“Buenos Aires. Prefectura,” he said, pointing to the word written on his shoulder. He was trying, and that made me feel a little better.

We crossed the street, climbed a hill, and entered the coast guard headquarters. It was attached to the Argentine navy base. Eleven years before, with the support of the Argentine and Chilean navies, I had swum across the Beagle Channel. No one had made that swim before, because of the cold and the strong currents, but my underlying reason for the swim was to gain cooperation from both navies and bridge the political distance between Argentina and Chile. The tall man in uniform guided me into the coast guard headquarters. There were four more men in uniform standing behind a counter. They were staring at me as if I’d just flown in from Venus. One man smirked and made a comment in Spanish. The man in charge agreed